Garlic and Me

It was a tool catalog that taught me how and when to plant and harvest garlic. Lee Valley, a mail-order company based in Canada, was a go-to catalog for my wood-working wonder of a partner. Years ago, while touting some gardening wonder implement or another, the company included a half page on garlic growing.  I can do this!!

Garlic is the last thing I plant each season. I start thinking about planting around the fall equinox.  I look over the garden and plan next year in my mind's eye and then decide what small space (about three yards square) I will choose to bed the garlic in over the winter.  I have until frost to get them in so I am leisurely about this.

I have saved back a few robust garlic heads from my July harvest. I have also pestered the garlic seller at farmer's market to share his favorites for me to try. And then in a whirl of activity, I break the heads into individual cloves, push them about an inch deep and 2-3" apart and ten minutes later, my year's worth of garlic is planted.  I put a thick mulch about 12" deep on top of them and mark the area.

The garlic sleeps the winter away.

By the spring equinox, the shoots are up; by summer solstice the scapes are ready and by July the stalks are brown and sere and my garlic is ready to come out of the ground.  A quick tug, a rub to get off the clinging dirt, a gentle braid of three heads with a loop at the top and they are ready to dry.

Our old rake handle (seems appropriate given where I learned to grow garlic) will hold the harvest under a protected roof to dry for a few weeks. Then I'll cut off the stems and put them in the pantry. I dream of meals ahead.....